Old school computer users still pine for the days when managing the files on your phone felt more like managing the files on your computer. By navigating directories and sub-directories, you knew exactly where every file was stored on your device, and how to get to it. With today’s automatic file sorting and hidden access paths, you lose a little bit of that control. Some are okay with that, some would like the complete control back and some would like to find a middle ground with easy access to files without having to jump into individual apps or navigate directories like Egyptian catacombs. For all of those users, there’s Tomi File Manager.

Tomi File Manager is a “user-centered designed” file manager app for Android that offers several different ways to access and organize all of the files on your device. There’s no setup with Tomi, just jump in and you’re ready to go.

When first opening Tomi, you’re presented with the most foolproof way to access your files. Everything on your device is sorted into six categories represented by large, easily distinguishably icons. There’s music, pictures, apps, download, docs and videos. Viewing the files in each file type will give you a couple of features and different viewing options depending on what you’re looking at.

With pictures, for example, you can view by the normal pictures mode, which is sorted by date; by screenshots, just in case you’re looking for a particular screenshot; and you can also view by folder, where you can see the exact path to what you’re looking at. From every viewing mode you can enlarge pictures and set them as your wallpaper, share or delete the pictures you’re currently looking at. You can also access a quick menu from the main viewing modes that offers a refresh button and a hide list. The hide list lets you select individual files to hide for whatever reason you may need to hide something for.

Every file type and file type viewing mode has unique options for acting on and sorting files. In the apps section, you can sort by downloaded, pre-installed or by APK files. You can backup apps, uninstall them or press them to access detailed app information. In the download section you can add new download paths, copy, delete, move, compress and view the details of a file. Music can be sorted a number of different ways — you get the picture. You don’t see the same set of basic sorting options or actions for every file type. Tomi has gone a step further than similar apps by adding custom actions for different file types, one of the best features of Tomi, and a great example of its user-centered design.

If you want even more control over your files or to just browse your phone the old fashioned way, available right from the opening file type access screen is a directory button. The directory is more about where files are located than what type they are. You can access your device’s internal memory, SD card, network sharing options or cloud services (this currently includes Dropbox and Google Drive, but more are coming) to find whatever you need. Each option simply follows the path you need to access each one. The emulated SD card on a 2013 Nexus 7 is located at root > storage > emulated > 0 >. Once in the directory you can navigate folders, create new folders, sort files and search for important documents. Every individual file has the same actions available through the directory as through the easy file type access system. In the directory you can also hide entire folders.

Options for Tomi File Manager are limited, but we found you don’t need much more than they supply. You can use a toolbox for more in-depth purposes like using a host and Build.prop Editor (both require root access), turn on hidden files, turn off anonymous usage stats and enable a root explorer for rooted users.

Tomi File Manager is a complete file management app that offers a wide variety of ways to access your files for different types of users. Everyone from beginners to expert root users will find Tomi useful. And it looks good doing it. To download Tomi File Manager use the download widget below.

Most Tweeted This Week

It is really a pain use Nexus 5 without a file manager application.
Many thanks for this introduction, downloaded and tried Tomi File Manager, and found it very simple to use, very smart to collect my files into different categories.